Surprises, bad and good, in Texas
George and I walked to Walgreens this evening because I needed to buy thank-you cards to send to people after the wedding. I swear no one--not Chapman, not the girls in the University bookstore, no one--knew of a place to get boxes of thank-you cards other than Walmart or Target, or maybe some specialty store in the upscale mall downtown. Unbelievable. Walgreens was finally suggested and I figured they'd be a pretty good shot which was also within walking distance. Well, there were no boxes of thank-you cards, or any boxes of cards at all other than these generic $1.50 cards. Everything else was individual cards. Where there should have been a rack of boxes of cards, they instead had a rack of "gift books", like "God's guide to being a grandparent" and "God's gift to you". Also, they had a rather large section of musical cards featuring songs by Tim McGraw. I also wanted to buy some toothpaste and since the Walgreens in Berkeley has a huge selection of Tom's of Maine products I figured I could get my kind here too. I had guessed the selection wouldn't be as big in Texas, but I tacitly assumed that each Walgreens at least carries the same brands. Well, they didn't have a single Tom's of Maine product. The whole experience made me feel horribly outside of the typical demographic.
Next stop was the Liquor Barn to buy some alcohol. I had vague memories that they might have some wine but since it was a Liquor Barn I figured I wouldn't get anything good. Boy was I shocked. They had a wine tasting by the door of a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc with a guy fairly knowledgeable on the subject and then I explored their selection and was finding $20-$80 bottles of high quality wine from France and elsewhere. They had a lot of specialized appellations, including 5 puttonyós Tokaj wine from Hungary ($70), so I started asking them about Monbazillac and then Saint-Emilion. They thought they had the latter, but the former was a complete novelty to them. They had Sauterne (the neighboring appellation of white) in stock, but they couldn't even find the Monbazillac in their wine connoisseur book. The whole thing was a surprisingly classy experience, and I got a decently priced Vouvray out of the whole deal. I was heartily amused as I got in line with my snooty French wine and then the knowledgeable guy went behind the register to ring up the trio of partying youngsters in front of me and recommended they 100 proof whiskey over the 80 proof because they'll get drunk faster. Oh, Texas.
Afterwards, George and I were planning to go to Ciao for a quality dinner but there was a 30 minute wait time. We didn't want to go to Shiraz and spotted some new place called Valentino's across the street. On the way we passed a specialty stationery shop (cha-ching!) so now I can buy some nice cards. This restaurant was fancy Italian (for Texas) and the maître d' eyed us warily because we were bringing in a bottle of wine and some gin. We assured him we were going to drink it later and everything was fine (then in secret we spiked our coffees with gin! Take that, maitre d! J/K). The entrees were tasty; I had mushroom ravioli and George had sausage and goat cheese on farfa-something pasta (not farfalle). Both were quite tasty, as was our bottle of light pinot grigio. The desserts left a little to be desired: George had a hazelnut marsala roulade that seemed to miss the "marsala" part, whereas I had a cappucino caramel mousse cake that turned out to be cappucino caramel ice cream cake. Neither dessert was what we were expecting, but overall it was a pretty good meal. I have to say, though, restaurants have gotten really ballsy with how much they charge for desserts--$7 when and entree is between $11 and $20?? That's quite the ripoff.
Next stop was the Liquor Barn to buy some alcohol. I had vague memories that they might have some wine but since it was a Liquor Barn I figured I wouldn't get anything good. Boy was I shocked. They had a wine tasting by the door of a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc with a guy fairly knowledgeable on the subject and then I explored their selection and was finding $20-$80 bottles of high quality wine from France and elsewhere. They had a lot of specialized appellations, including 5 puttonyós Tokaj wine from Hungary ($70), so I started asking them about Monbazillac and then Saint-Emilion. They thought they had the latter, but the former was a complete novelty to them. They had Sauterne (the neighboring appellation of white) in stock, but they couldn't even find the Monbazillac in their wine connoisseur book. The whole thing was a surprisingly classy experience, and I got a decently priced Vouvray out of the whole deal. I was heartily amused as I got in line with my snooty French wine and then the knowledgeable guy went behind the register to ring up the trio of partying youngsters in front of me and recommended they 100 proof whiskey over the 80 proof because they'll get drunk faster. Oh, Texas.
Afterwards, George and I were planning to go to Ciao for a quality dinner but there was a 30 minute wait time. We didn't want to go to Shiraz and spotted some new place called Valentino's across the street. On the way we passed a specialty stationery shop (cha-ching!) so now I can buy some nice cards. This restaurant was fancy Italian (for Texas) and the maître d' eyed us warily because we were bringing in a bottle of wine and some gin. We assured him we were going to drink it later and everything was fine (then in secret we spiked our coffees with gin! Take that, maitre d! J/K). The entrees were tasty; I had mushroom ravioli and George had sausage and goat cheese on farfa-something pasta (not farfalle). Both were quite tasty, as was our bottle of light pinot grigio. The desserts left a little to be desired: George had a hazelnut marsala roulade that seemed to miss the "marsala" part, whereas I had a cappucino caramel mousse cake that turned out to be cappucino caramel ice cream cake. Neither dessert was what we were expecting, but overall it was a pretty good meal. I have to say, though, restaurants have gotten really ballsy with how much they charge for desserts--$7 when and entree is between $11 and $20?? That's quite the ripoff.